[Ed. note: Mr. Small is a well known expert on history of Zeiss and
Rollei Optics and Collectible Cameras...]
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999
From: Marc James Small [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Origin of the Arsenal Plant: Long!
Simply put, the Soviet Union demanded camera technology and machinery from
Germany, and the Allies agreed. The US 80th Division (my old unit, by the
way!) took the Zeiss plant at Jena and spirited away a number of documents
and higher management and design staff and, of course, the Zeiss Lens
Collection before the plant was turned over to the Soviets. Then, the
Soviets gradually moved a lot of this gear to several Russian and Ukrainian
sites. The Zeiss Ikon Contax was placed into production at Jena and this
was shifted to the USSR by 1949. By that year, the Arsenal Plant at Kiev
was producing exact copies of the Contax II camera and the Prewar Zeiss
lens line for this system; the Contax III was added the following year.
These are the Kiev II and III camera bodies which, bit by bit, are improved
and modified into the Kiev 4A and 4AM which remained in production until
1986. (And this also explains why Zeiss Ikon wonks recommend Prewar
Contax cameras as users: new parts are still being manufactured in Kiev!)
In the '50's, the Arsenal Plant in the Ukraine and the KMZ plant in Moscow
began to produce a variety of designs which would eventually consolidate
into the Kiev 88. There are some significant improvements in the Soviet
design over the Swedish original but this lad, in any event, believes it to
have been an outright theft, though perhaps a damnum absque iniuria, as
Hasselblad had by then abandoned the design.
Shell repeats the Party Line, that the Kiev 88 is an outgrowth of design
work emenating from the "Handkammer Hk 12.5/7x9", a product of the Fritz
Volk concern in Berlin during the early war years. (This was an aerial
recon camera produced for the Luftwaffe; it was equipped, I have just
delightedly discovered from an exemplar which was captured on a Japanese
recon plane in New Guinea in 1944 -- and just HOW did this camera get THERE
at THAT time? -- with an ISCO lens, though most sources credit the camera
with a JSK lens. ISCO is a subsidiary of JSK -- "Ioseph Schneider
Goettingen".) Germany became concerned over the supply of military cameras
and asked Hasselblad, in neutral Sweden, to consider the production of the
Volk camera in case the German plants were destroyed by bombing. This
camera was the basis for the later 1600F. The Soviets contended that the
designs and tooling for the Volk Handkammer were seized by them in '45 and
that they independently developed the '88 from the same roots whence sprang
the 1600F/1000F.
I doubt this tale, though it is just this side of being absolutely absurd.
As Bugs Bunny, that Godfather to all sane and sage historians, advises, "Eh
... could be, Doc!" Acquaintances who worked at the Arsenal Plant snort at
the tale as fabrication, but none were working there in, say, 1950 or '55
or '60, so we cannot dispositively rule out the idea.
Still, I like the '88. Nice camera. I have owned a number and all were
solid workhorses. Fine lenses, generally direct thefts of Zeiss Jena
designs. I recognize the camera has a bad rap for reliability but, in
part, this is urban myth, in part the refusal by most repair dudes to
handle the '88 OR the Hasselblad 1600F/1000F, in part by the reputation of
the Hasselblad 1600F/1000F for being a piece of junk, an unfair calumny of
the first water, but out there in Camera Store Clerk land for the all of it.
Some of this can be found in that fount of all Hasselblad wisdom, List
Member Nordin's HASSELBLAD SYSTEM COMPENDIUM, and some can be found in
another worthy tome, Barringer and
Bob Shell is, incidentally, a good friend and neighbor, though we've just
never met in person -- he lives fifty miles from me, and I was his County
Attorney for three years. Bob used to own a camera store and,
occasionally, falls into the Camera Store Clerk mentality, and I am quick
to point out the error of his ways! He is a Rollei user and is an active
member of the Rollei List, where his contributions are most welcome, both
as those of a working pro using the 600x system and as an authority and
scholar in his own right.
Marc
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999
Marc,
Thanks for the account, it is very interesting. I'll admit to really
knowing nothing about these cameras except for the few basics I've read.
Obviously the history here is rather obtuse, but the fact remains that the
Kiev 88 and Hassy 1000F/1600F are like sister cameras, close siblings if
not twins. There is surely some fundamental reason for this, and though
the truth may not be known by anyone living, it seems to me that there
could be only two explainations. Either the Soviets went to great lengths
to copy (and even improve on) the 1000F/1600F design, which as you show
would have been helped considerably by having access to the Zeiss plant,
or they did indeed have use of the same original tooling equipment that
lead to the development of the 1000F/1600F. This later senario you seem to
discount, but if true could have been the basic fact that was mutated into
the story I took for fact.
Whatever the actual history may be, I find it fascinating that these are the
roots and diverging trails of this fine camera I enjoy.
Robert
[Ed. note: possibly related interest item?...]
Zenith cameras have 42 mm screw mounts. Originally Zenith's were made
only in Krasnogorsk and they were of quite decent quality. Later (mid
seventies I think, but I may be wrong) they started to produce them in
some Belorussia small town (again, don't remember the name) where they
were reportedly assembled by prisoners. These ones were of significantly
inferior quality. These cameras where hard to find in shops; on the
black market a Krasnogorsk camera would sold by almost twice the price
of a Belorussia one. You can tell one from another by the trade mark:
the ones made in Krasnogorsk have a hallmark looking as a ray of light
passing through a prism.
The optics was also quite good. I used "Industar 60" 55/2.8 lens (very
sharp), "Helios 44" -- quite soft 50/2.8 mm, "Jupiter 9" 85/2.8 mm --
excellent one for portraits, and "Jupiter 11" 110/?.
All this information was correct more than 11 years ago. The slides and
prints made then still look pretty decent when compared with today's
average amateurs stuff. But the camera and lenses were very heavy and
cameras' reliability was very low (amateurs used them, but professionals
shooting up to 30-50 films a week had to replace them very often and if
not having access to Japanese cameras they tried to get some GDR made
Praktika's at least). Honestly, I can't imagine why today and this side
of the former Iron Curtain somebody would like to have one if the
construction and materials have not been changed dramatically since.
Alexander
From Panoramic Mailing List:
Here's some sad news I've just heard:
The production of the Horizon 202 has been stopped finally.
This is primarily caused by the reorientation of the Russian
and White-Russian optical industry from consumer products
back to their 'main businesses' in the military sector, a
strategic development which has been established after the
election of Putin.
All other cameras and lenses from Russia and White-Russia
are probably affected by this new development as well.
Marco
--
From: "Robert G. Welch" [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Origin of the Arsenal Plant: Long!
From: Alexander Shmugliakov [email protected]
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.misc
Subject: Re: Zenit Camera (Russian)
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000
From: Marco Pauck
Subject: Production of the Horizon 202 has been stopped finally
Marco Pauck -- [email protected] -- http://www.pauck.de/marco/
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple,
neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken